


Quarter Past Midnight

by AugustArchon



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Battle City Arc, Developing Friendships, Gen, M/M, Pre-Relationship, is this platonic or prideshipping the choice is yours, late night chats aboard the battle city blimp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:27:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23089330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AugustArchon/pseuds/AugustArchon
Summary: Battle City takes its toll on everyone, Seto included.
Relationships: Kaiba Seto & Yami Yuugi, Kaiba Seto/Yami Yuugi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 72





	Quarter Past Midnight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sombreset](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sombreset/gifts).



"Can't sleep?" comes Yugi's eternally unwelcome voice from the doorway.

Seto kicks a leg up onto the lounge's coffee table and keeps scrolling through messages on his phone. Not that there's anything new—not with their signal cut off like it has been since the first day of Battle City—but it keeps his hands busy. "I don't see how that's any of your concern, Mutou."

"Aww, don't Mutou me. I thought we were friends." He can practically hear the frown in the boy's voice, like he's actually upset by Seto's shortness. Not that Seto can imagine why; he's short with everyone. 

And, more to the point:

"I don't have friends."

The back of the couch shifts under Yugi's weight. "Yeah you do, you just hate admitting it because you repress everything and yell at people instead."

"Says the man who handles his emotions by literally leaving his body," Seto grumbles under his breath. His voice is too dark to be Yugi's, not that Yugi would ever dare to contradict him so casually. "And if you're doing that thing with the third eye, that's cheating."

"I'd like to see you share your emotions with someone twenty-four seven and not want time to yourself at some point," Not-Yugi retorts. "Besides, since when have I ever needed to cheat in order to beat you?"

It's a low blow but one which has, no doubt, exactly the effect the boy was hoping for: Seto turns to glare, irritation leapfrogging in precedence over the fact that he was trying to end this conversation without making eye contact. Curse him.

The damn pharaoh just looks smug.

Or, he looks smug up until the point he gets a good look at the exhaustion painted across Seto's face, at which point the smugness morphs to poorly-veiled concern. It makes Seto bristle.

"You can talk to me, you know," the boy tells him.

"What, so you can go blab my problems to all your friends?" Seto asks with a scowl. "I don't think so. And there's nothing to talk about."

The pharaoh swings his legs over the couch so he's perched on the back of it, rumpling the cushions under his socked feet. He's in Yugi's ridiculous pyjamas, star-print flannel partially unbuttoned over the leather collar he never seems to take off. The fact that he still manages to look regal in such laughable clothing is frankly a bit offensive.

"I'm more than capable of keeping secrets," he tells him. "I have no intention of sharing anything you don't wish to be known, with Yugi or otherwise."

"How noble," Seto replies drily. If he wanted a therapist he would hire one, not bare his soul to his four-foot-nothing rival. Gods know the boy himself is half of his problems.

"I'm told nobility comes with the territory," the pharaoh chuckles. "Kingship and all that, right?"

"Not that you remember anything about it."

"Hah!" he crows, leaning forward into Seto's personal space with a blinding grin. "So you _do_ admit you believe in our past!"

Seto rolls his eyes, putting his other foot up onto the table and crossing his arms. "No, I concede that Yugi and yourself are not the same person. I never said anything about believing you're actually some sort of royalty—only that you think you are, despite a complete lack of proof."

"Details," obviously-not-Yugi says, waving a hand as though he can dismiss his lost memories by doing so. "Why are you still awake?"

And, please, as if he's going to fall for such a faux-casual change in topic. Instead he turns the question back on its source.

"Why are _you?"_

Unlike Seto, though, Yugi's doppelganger seems completely willing to talk, and honestly Seto should have known better than to walk into that particular trap. He blames the stress, and the fact that he's in dire need of coffee.

"Nightmares," the pharaoh answers easily. "They've gotten worse since we've been onboard; I think it's all the shadow magic. I keep waking Yugi up, so I figured this way his mind can rest even if our body can't."

Yeah, he really shouldn't have fallen for that trap. 

Damn it all.

Propriety says he should respond somehow—a word of sympathy, at least, or a question about the contents of those dreams—but Seto has never been one to care much about propriety. Instead he gives a noncommittal hum and goes back to his phone, hoping that if he ignores the boy he'll eventually get bored and go away.

Instead, he finds himself with a silent yet extremely present companion.

Who will not.

 _Leave_.

The minutes drag by in a blatant contest of stubbornness—two, then five, then fifteen pass as the clock over the door ticks out his seemingly endless torture. Finally, the pharaoh nudges his shoulder with his knee and Seto thinks he's won.

"Has that text changed at all in the past seven times you've read it?" he asks, voice coming from entirely too close to Seto's ear.

Seto rounds on him, irritation flaring because no, it hasn't, and he's losing his damn mind trying to pretend he's unbothered, but the pharaoh is laughing high and clear and Seto has no idea how that laughter manages to both lessen his frustration and be so _wildly obnoxious_ at the same time.

"I'm going to throw you off the side of the ship and find out if Egyptians could really swim as well as they say," he growls, but that only makes the pharaoh laugh harder, and Seto can't help but wonder where his life went wrong.

When he's finally caught his breath, though, the boy sobers. "I mean it, Kaiba," he insists. "Yugi used to put enough concealer over his black eyes for me to realize you're wearing some too, and even through that you look dead on your feet. Why are you still up?"

Seto flips his phone closed, perhaps a bit more aggressively than the situation calls for. How many times is he going to lose against this man? Battle City is meant to be his triumph, but from the looks of it he'll have to keep waiting 'til Alcatraz to have his victory. Hoping to at least get a moment's upper hand he leans forward, reaching for the handgun he's been keeping in his waistband and brandishing it for the man to see.

"I realize you think I'm not taking events in this tournament with the gravity they deserve," he explains as his unwanted companion jerks back, nearly over-balancing off the back of the couch in the process. "However, I can assure you that's not the case."

The pharaoh swears colorfully under his breath. "Are you carrying a _gun_ on an _airship?"_ he asks in horror.

Seto doesn't so much as twitch. "Yes."

"You could kill someone with that!"

"Congrats, you've figured out the purpose of a firearm."

Wine-red eyes, wide as saucers, blink back at him for a long moment before the pharaoh drops his head into his hands. "Oh my god you're a complete madman."

"It's your own fault," he counters. "When you broke my mind you failed to remove the piece that is fully willing to shoot someone."

The pharaoh turns his head, one eye visible through his cascade of blonde hair.

"I didn't remove anything," he says with far more gravity than Seto had meant with the offhand quip. "All I did was give you the opportunity to make your own decisions; all the pieces were still there. You were the one who decided what and how you wanted to fit back together."

Seto… isn't sure how to respond to that, really, so he doesn't. Instead he runs his thumb over the handgrip of the gun and glares at the far wall like it's personally offended him, choosing the lesser of two evils to focus on.

"What happens between duelists, during a duel, is on them. Neither I nor my men will interfere in the tournament," he explains. "If someone wants out, they have forfeit; otherwise the duel is still legal and will be allowed to progress. Outside of that, however…" Seto glances back up to the boy sitting beside him, eyeing the millennium puzzle with distrust. "I've watched back the security tapes. I know there have been at least three separate attempts on people's lives outside the arena, and we've lost contact with anyone outside this ship."

"You're trying to protect us," the boy realizes.

Seto snorts derisively. "Don't get any ideas, Pharaoh. I'm protecting my family."

In a common area at the heart of the ship, instead of at Mokuba's door, sure, but that's not the point. It's not like he's standing guard in the duelist wing or anything; he's just making sure that the competitors keep to themselves and their medical patients and staff aren't bothered. Anyone who wants to reach beyond the duelist wing has to come through here to reach the elevator, so it's the logical place to spend the night.

Gods know he's too jumpy to sleep himself. Trust isn't his strong suit.

The pharaoh's lips twitch into a smile like he's in on the secret, but by some meagre grace he doesn't call him on it. Instead he rolls his eyes, shoving Seto's shoulder. "Have you considered something less likely to blow a hole in the side of the ship? A taser, maybe?"

"Mokuba has a taser; I prefer something a little more permanent." He's fairly certain the pharaoh does too, given past history, but Yugi seems to have reined him in over recent months. A pity, really. "Is there a reason you're talking to me, or are you just set on being a nightlong irritation?"

The pharaoh sighs heavily and slides down the cushions to sit next to him. "I told you already—I've been having nightmares. I was gonna go to the kitchen and make tea or something but you've so helpfully planted yourself between there and my room, and you're more fun to prod at. Tea doesn't tend to make rude comments in response to mine."

Seto wrinkles his nose at the mental image that brings to mind. "Do you have a habit of insulting your tea?"

"Nah, but you should see your face right now. 'Kaiba Seto makes more than one expression!' Comedy gold."

"I have two expressions," Seto deadpans. "Maniacal laughter and existential disdain."

His rival clutches his chest in feigned shock. "Stop the press, I think you just tried to be funny."

"Mm, clearly I need more coffee then."

The pharaoh just smiles. Seto tells himself that the kindness in that turn of lips is a quirk he picked up from Yugi, not anything meant to be directed at him, but it still cuts through his ribs like it is.

"Go to bed, Kaiba," the pharaoh says gently. "I'm not getting back to sleep anyway, and you've got a duel in the morning; I'll keep watch for you."

Seto bristles at the insinuations—that he can't do this himself, that he's not capable of defending his own family… that anyone cares enough to notice how badly all of this is wearing on him. "What, so that when you lose in our duel you can blame it on sleep deprivation?" he bites out. "I don't think so."

"Yugi and I will take a nap during the lunch break, it's fine."

He shoves the gun back into his waistband and crosses his arms, glowering. "I don't need anybody's help, Pharaoh."

Seto can't remember much of a time in his life when he wasn't wildly beyond his depth. He's learned to keep his head above water through sheer force of will, staring the ocean into submission. So, no, they can't contact anyone for help. They have two duelists comatose, and gods Seto never had art or programming made for are manifesting themselves regardless above his airship.

But he'll kill Ra himself if he has to, and kill that bastard Marik for good measure if he tries anything else tonight. It'll be a PR disaster, but he has enough of a legal team to survive the fallout, and Mokuba is too obvious a target for Seto not to wait the night out with a gun and a full security detail stationed around his brother's room.

"Kaiba."

 _"What?"_ he snaps, eyes flashing dangerously.

But the pharaoh doesn't give him the fight he's been looking for since everything started to go sideways, desperate for anyone he can tear into in order to take the edge off his stress. Instead, Seto tenses instinctively as arms wrap around his waist.

"Shut up," the pharaoh demands, words muffled against his shoulder. "I know you don't need my help, just shut up and let me give it anyway."

"What the hell are you doing?" Seto hisses, frozen stock-still like the pharaoh is a snake who will rear back and bite him if he breathes. It's damn lucky for his rival that Seto hadn't thrown him to the floor in self-defense, because that was absolutely a possibility and it wouldn't have even been personal.

"Shut up," the pharaoh mumbles again, tightening his grip.

And for lack of a better option, starting to suspect this may all just be some sort of sleep-deprived hallucination, Seto does.

The boy sighs quietly, slowly relaxing against his side, and hallucination or not Seto can't help but wonder if this was as much for his own benefit as it presumably is for Seto's. It's not like the pharaoh shows up much outside of duels, and if he's been plagued with bad dreams…

Seto decides that must be the reason. It's not like the boy is running around hugging people like Yugi does; he must just be having a moment of weakness and Seto was the person who happened to be awake for it. By that logic, he can justify tugging his arm out of the pharaoh's grasp—absolutely not thinking about the half second of rejection that flickers across his face—and wrap it awkwardly around the boy's shoulders instead.

He doesn't think about the tiny smile on the pharaoh's face at the gesture, either. Or the fact that some tiny, traitorous part of him doesn't entirely hate this.

"Take the gun at least," Seto says as the clock strikes one in the morning.

"I'm more dangerous without it," the pharaoh replies, reluctantly pulling away. "Go to sleep. I'll make sure you and your brother are safe."

And, gods help him, Seto does.

Nobody can prove he says anything, as he stands in the doorway and glances back over his shoulder. Come morning, the security footage of the past forty-five minutes will be gone.

But if it wasn't—if he _had_ said something, and someone were to listen carefully enough to the grainy audio—it would have been a single word of thanks forced between grit teeth.

He sleeps more soundly that night than he has since the tournament started. And if Yugi gives him a quiet, knowing look over a cup of coffee at breakfast, neither of them say a word.


End file.
